Ain't It?
by Stormweaver
Summary: Fraser and Ray from the view of a criminal-to-be... PG-13 is for a bit of violence.


The thing I remember most is the acrid reek of the burning metal from the explosions. The room was quite still, save for the sound of my ragged gasping breaths. I could taste the blood on my lip, which made me look at the blood on the floor again, and I felt my knees getting weak.

I'd rented the old warehouse just outside of Chicago for the past year, while I built up my courage, finessed my plans, and allowed Crazy Dog to finetune his skills with the explosives. What remained of the building was a wreck, at least on the inside. The tables were tipped, fluids seeping through cracked flasks to pool on the stained cement floor. 

It had taken all four of my friends to finally bring the two intruders down. I was lucky everyone was still alive. Crazy Dog had been setting up another test explosion outside when the thieves surprised him, and the bomb went off. It blew one window of the warehouse to pieces, and stunned everyone, long enough for us to get the advantage anyway.

I yelled to my friend Alison to tie the intruders up. Then I took a closer look at them after I was sure they were bound and gagged. One was a real pretty boy, and probably knew it too. I always hated that kind of guy. They were usually full of themselves. The other was good looking, in a different way. Both were glaring at me like I was somehow to blame for their situation. Like they hadn't been trespassing or something.

No, I couldn't have called the police. The reason why is coming later. Keep your shirt on and order us another drink. Just rye and coke. Why does every guy think women drink nothing but wine coolers? Yeah, yeah, I know, not you. Anyway.

I wasn't sure what to do. Alison laced the two to a metal support post, and I checked the ropes myself. I helped another friend of mine, Joe, to his feet. He had some glass cuts on his face, but he was okay otherwise. Nobody else was hurt bad, Kenton and Lisa were already cleaning up the mess. One of the two invaders had a gun, which I gave to Alison to keep safe.

I was starting to choke on the fumes from all the spilled chemicals, so I went into my office, the only other room in the place. I sat in my old, ripped, yellow chair and went over the inventory sheets again, making sure we still had enough stock left for the really big boom I was planning.

The old phone on my desk rang, shaking and rattling and scaring the crap out of me. I grabbed the phone, my heart beating a million miles a minute. I knew I couldn't relax until my family was safe.

It was the doctor, my brother's doctor. After he hung up, I sat and stared at the phone in my hand for a few seconds. My brother Antony was getting out of the hospital. He was shot in the street three months before. I spent the first month by his side, and I helped him come out of his coma by reading the Bible to him every night. He woke up, but he never mentioned all that reading. Too bad I never asked him about that, I hope it helped. Not that it matters now.

He was getting out of the hospital, and the guy who shot him, Davy Goran, was getting out of jail. Davy's family could afford the best lawyers. Old money, drug money, dirty money, clean money, it doesn't matter, it's money. My brother had been gambling and had borrowed money from Goran, hadn't told me about it either. I would have borrowed money to help Tony, he must have known that. He couldn't even claim bankruptcy, what do the Gorans care. Davy broke my mother's arm, sent a purse snatcher with an attitude. The bastard wouldn't let Tony go and Tony couldn't pay. He kept sending the guys around and Tony did okay until Ma got beat up again and Tony threw the next goon out the kitchen window. We lived on the sixth floor. After that, Davy played for keeps, and sent his brother after mine.

Tony told me the truth when he came out of his coma, so I knew what I had to do. I prayed by his side every night, and finally I saw the way. 

I used all my savings to rent the warehouse and track down Crazy Dog to make the bomb. My friends were happy to help, for a price, and Alison swore she'd stick with me, for a good cause. Oh we didn't call Crazy Dog that to his face, we just called him Dawg. It would have been nuts to call him crazy. 

So I needed to be able to hide Crazy Dog and store the exposives. Besides, I always wanted a warehouse apartment. I'd somehow get the bomb close to Davy and his inner circle, and boom... no more problem.

Dawg told me he was going to do the final testing. I guess he wasn't happy that he'd almost blown us all up just a few minutes before, when the intruders surprised him. I had to do something with them before Dawg got any ideas about test subjects. If only the police could pin anything on the Gorans, I could have called the cops. I wish to God I had called them anyway.

Where did that leave me? The intruders, obviously able to take care of themselves in a fight, knew where my warehouse was. They'd seen the explosives, Hell, felt the explosives, and had even told me they knew what was going on before Alison gagged them. The pretty boy even said that they intended to stop me. They had to be hired goons from somewhere, maybe even Davy's. For the millionth time, I wished Davy Goran had never existed.

When I left my office and got back to the main area, one of the strangers was nearly free. I heard some kind of dog barking outside, and some yelling. I thought maybe Joe had brought his husky to the place, what did I care. All I knew was that if the stranger got free, my brother was as good as dead, and my stupid friends were playing with some dog. 

I didn't think about it, but suddenly there was this steel pipe in my hand, and the guy was coming toward me. I swung before he could get to me, and his partner tried to yell something past the gag... the next thing I remember is puking in a corner, throwing the bloody pipe away from me, cringing at the sharp hollow sound it made on the cement floor. I looked back at the two men and the one that almost got to me was lying on the floor, really still, blood leaking from his skull. The other guy was trying to say something, or maybe he was just upset. I was upset too, I mean in the movies they always hit each other pretty hard with bats and stuff, how was I supposed to know that he couldn't take a shot to the head? Women aren't supposed to be as strong as men either, if you believe the movies... besides, it was self-defense.

I looked down past the caved-in head, swallowed hard, and saw a glint of something metal. I reached into his pocket and found a slim wallet, with a metal badge... Chicago P.D. I knew then that I was in deep shit. How was I supposed to know they weren't just hired goons? I bowed my head in a prayer for forgiveness... hey, it couldn't hurt.

When I looked up, pretty boy was staring at me. About that time I wished I'd blindfolded him, because I saw nothing but emptiness and hate in his eyes. Just as I was going to yell for help, I heard a shot from outside, followed by a scream. I turned when I heard the snarl behind me. There was the biggest damn dog I'd ever seen. Looked like a wolf, fangs all out and growling like that. It sure didn't look like Joe's dog. Strangest of all, it was carrying a gun in its mouth... the same one we got off the cop. I started backing up, and the dog went over to the body of the guy I had just hit. It gave this weird keening whine, then went over to the pretty boy's ropes and dropped the gun, then started chewing on the ropes, once in a while looking at me and growling.

It didn't take long before the other guy (probably a cop too, I figured) was out of the ropes and checking his friend. I could have told him the guy was dead, it looked pretty obvious to me, but he checked anyway. Then he was on me. He grabbed my arms and started to say something, but then he just looked at his cop friend again. He was a strong bastard, and I couldn't break free. I thought he'd read me my rights, but instead he took some of the rope and tied my hands together. Then he grabbed the gun.

He marched me out of the place, to the big field of junk out back of the warehouse. There was tall grass all around, but you could see a small pond down the hill. We headed towards the pond. I thought about how easy it would be to hide a body in all the shells of old cars. I don't know why I didn't scream. I guess I was in shock. As far as I knew, the dog had killed my friends or driven them off. I was alone.

I could feel the hot sun soaking into my black jacket, and I could hear the song of the blackbirds down in the cattails by the pond. I'd never realized they could sing so pretty before. 

Something hit me in the back of my knees, and I fell to the ground. I turned over and saw him looking down at me. Then he fell to his knees and just sat there for a while, staring at me. Neither of us said a word. I saw his eyes getting darker and darker. When I was just about to break the silence to beg for mercy, he finally spoke. 

"He was the closest friend I ever had," was all he said. 

Many things filled my head as he raised the gun, how the blackbirds sounded so beautiful down on the pond, how I should have been screaming my head off, how we were out of sight of any roads, how the black gun glittered in the sunlight... some part of me was thinking how he had a right to do this. I hadn't meant to kill his friend, but he'd make me pay the price. He lifted me to my feet, a strong hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes.

I had taken a life in the space of a moment, and now so too could this stranger. "Please..." I whispered, out of fear, out of sheer desperation, and I don't remember if I was begging for my life or a clean shot. I could feel him trembling, felt the gun's warm barrel glance against my temple... and then I was on my face in the grass, and he was gone. By the time I stood up and got back to the warehouse, more police were there.

No, I don't know why he did that. If I'd known he was some kind of cop... a Mountie, even, I'd have just run for it when they first showed up.

Tony never made it out of the hospital either, someone suffocated him with a pillow just before he was released. I know it was a goon of Davy's, but what can you prove. Yeah, tragic, ain't it? 


End file.
